Talk:Prerelease Streets
Pursuing Ourumov I was playing Streets earlier, and I got thinking about what this stage might have been like before release. The action block to move Ourumov's car was completed, and the car is able to drive a short distance through the city. Up to this point I always figured they simply ran out of time to finish this mission, and just threw some blockades and guards in at the last minute. The problem with that theory is that the pads for all of that stuff comes before the pad for the car. I think it's not only possible but likely that Ourumov's car was never intended to actually drive through the city, instead it probably would have driven to the end of path 00 and disappeared. The rest of the mission would have played out like normal, with Bond racing against nothing but the time limit - the prerelease text file seems to back this up, too. If this was the case, there's a very simple explanation for why the car was removed, despite being nearly completed: Bond could easily run ahead of the car and watch it disappear. Personally I don't think that would've been a big deal, but the developers might have thought just not having the car at all would be better than having the illusion that you're actually chasing it ruined. Dragonsbrethren 18:08, 25 January 2009 (UTC) :Felt I should add, that's not to say they didn't originally have bigger plans for the stage, this just seems to be the best explanation for what remains in the final version's setup file. Dragonsbrethren 18:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC) ::KCGhost once tried playing around with Ourumov's car path, by building onto it and making it drive farther than it currently does. However, various problems occured. Too many obstructions kept blocking the vehicle and preventing it from moving. Guards and civilians would run infront of it, grinding it to a hault. Also, with where the parked cars and barricades are situated, it becomes increasingly difficult to get the vehicle to maneuvere around everything. Unless you remove any and all possible obstructions, it's simply too hard for a full path to be run smoothly. ::However, I have my own ideas as to why it was scrapped beyond that. Say there weren't any objects or characters along the streets, it'd be awfully boring to just chase after Ourumov the entire time. And once they put some more action in, it interfered with the vehicle. Also, unless they came up with an Action Block to increase the speed of the car when you get within a certain proximity of it, you could either bypass it, or crush it with your tank. There may have even been issues with how it took damage. If it wasn't invincible, you'd need to be cautious around it. Any explosions or gunfire taken from you, or other elements in the stage, could cause great harm to it, ultimately failing your mission. ::Near the end of production, it's quite likely that they tried utilizing a quick path for an intro camera. Something to show the player that Ourumov is speeding off through the streets of St. Petersburg with Natalya. It's unfortunate that this wasn't kept in, as it would've been a nice beginning to the level. ::However, judging by what is left in the setup file, I'd say your concept is probably correct. Once you saw the car and it began to move, what prevented Bond from running up to it? Unless it was going really fast, which would make sense in the situation, you might be able to catch up either on foot (maybe with Turbo, even) or in the tank. And if it was supposed to just disappear once it reached a certain pad, the player could possibly see it happen. Watching a scientist or hostage vanish is one thing, but a vehicle? Wreck @ 3:45pm - January 25th, 2009 :::Yeah, that's another thing I forgot to mention. When you destroy a moving vehicle, the burned up wreckage keeps driving along like nothing happened. I suppose they could have checked for the car's destruction and ended the mission instantly. Either that or the car was invincible like the truck in Dam, and that would've taken any challenge out of following it around. There's a similar problem with my idea though, there is no way to check if the car has arrived at a certain pad, the only way to fade it out would be to use the cycle counter or timer. Also, the car loves driving into the wall of the skyway, even though none of its path nodes go anywhere near it. I even tried moving path nodes, building a new path for it, and it still had trouble, maybe the car was just too much of a pain to get working. :::It's really easy to run in front of the car, it only moves when Bond gets close to it, almost touching the front door. If the soldiers surrounding it aren't killed it won't move since they get in the way, and even when it does go you can just speed strafe to get in front of it easily. Dragonsbrethren 06:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)